From Price Cuts To Blue Hedgehogs: News Roundup August 1st

A price cut for the PS3 seems to be more likely than ever, as the evidence continues to pile higher and higher in today’s news roundup. In other news Dark Void joins pretty much any game worth mentioning aiming for a 2010 release, Nintendo see a 60% drop in profits, and ancient hedgehog Sonic may return to side scrolling roots.

PS3 Price Cut Even More Likely Now?

A 70% reduction in PS3 production costs has led to hopeful talk of a price cut for Sony’s beast. During a press conference Sony executive vice president and chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda announced, “the cost reduction since we introduced the PS3 is very substantial and this is on schedule. We don't disclose how much of the PS3, specifically the cost deduction was achieved during the past two years. But that is on schedule.” The substantially lower production costs allow Sony more room regarding the sale price, so keep those eyes peeled. [Edge]

Dark Void Ditches 2009

Games set for a 2009 release date seem to be dropping like flies, with all the big hitters slotted in for 2010 now. Capcom’s Dark Void is the latest game to join the growing ranks, apparently to avoid the “crowded fall game season”, which is no longer crowded, and ironically rather empty compared to the packed full early 2010 period. Capcom will be looking to polish up Dark Void in anticipation for its undetermined 2010 release. [1UP]

Sonic To Return To Side-Scrolling Roots

Poor Sonic has quite simply failed to live up to the glory of his younger days. Sega try and make him feel better, with recent games seeing him become a werewolf (or as Sega call it, a werehog), and even handling giant swords, but so far nothing has worked. Addressing this, Sega’s vice president of marketing Sean Ratcliff said “the quality is something that will be fixed over time. It's not something where you wake up one morning and say, 'You know what, we're going to improve our quality on this franchise,' and it magically happens. A lot of hard work goes into striving for quality”.

With Nintendo returning to side scrolling in New Super Mario Bros, they same may be true with old Sonic. Ratcliff said Sega are “always looking at [their] classic IP”, and pointing out the success of Sonic on the iPhone digital downloads may be the future. “We can look at XBLA and so on, and it means we can give those core fans experiences in different ways now. So that's a big part of our strategy, in terms of taking classic IP and making it available digitally, rather than spending a huge amount of money trying to re-imagine that IP on 360 and PS3”. [IndustryGamers]

Nintendo Sales Drop 60%

Nintendo has reported a 60.6% drop in profits in the first quarter of the financial year. The Japanese giant blames the current strength of the yen as well as a fall in demand for the Wii. Nintendo has reported its net income drop from 107 billion yen over the same period last year to 42 billion yen. Similarly the Wii’s worldwide sales seen a drop from 5.17 million units during last years first quarter, to 2.23 million this year. Nintendo point that last year blockbuster titles like Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii served as blockbusters driving sales of the Wii forward, something thy didn’t have this year. Regardless, Nintendo still remain on track for their estimated 26 million Wii sales for the entire year. [VG247]

Funny reading the article on Sonic. They say they are looking more towards the roots and the side scrolling to improve the next game. If you dig out articles from before Sonic Unleashed came out they said the exact same thing and look what happened.

Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and WiiWare games are proof that people will happily pay for older style side scrollers. Just look at BRAID, why doesn't Sonic Team get it..?

It's quite simple and a fan has already done what could be superb concet art: